by Oliver North
“You say you know the location of the American?”
Komulakov took out the piece of paper on which he had written down Newman's GPS coordinates, and Dotensk wrote them down. Before hanging up he reminded the arms merchant, “Remember, tell Kamil—this must be done at once!”
Apartment of Leonid Dotensk
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Rashid Hotel
Baghdad, Iraq
Tuesday, 7 March 1995
0810 Hours, Local
As soon as he hung up with Komulakov, Dotensk redialed the cell-phone number for Kamil. As the phone rang, the Ukrainian thought, It's a good thing that those good communists from Beijing installed this cellular system, otherwise nobody in this filthy cesspool of a country could make a phone call.
The commander of the Amn Al-Khass answered curtly in Arabic, “Kamil, who is this?”
“Hussein, it is Leonid; I must speak to you.”
“After yesterday, I think I have listened enough to you. I am very busy right now. As you probably already know, the Republican Guards and several other divisions have been ordered to attack the pirates' den north of Mosul. I will be too busy to meet with you for the next several days. Do not call me. I shall call you when I believe it is safe to do so. Good-bye.”
“Hussein, Hussein, your life is in danger!”
“What did you say?
“There is an American from one of the aircraft downed yesterday who is alive, and if he is rescued or captured by a unit other than the Amn Al-Khass, he could tell everything about your plan to defect.”
“An American now on the ground here in Iraq knows of what you and I have spoken regarding my family and me? What kind of fool are you, Leonid?”
“Not as big a fool as you, if you fail to hunt him down. I swear, Kamil, you must take action immediately, for your good as well as mine.”
Dotensk could sense Kamil fuming on the other end of the line.
“Where is he?” Kamil snapped, finally. Dotensk gave the GPS coordinates.
The Iraqi wrote down the GPS coordinates that Dotensk recited to him and after consulting a map Kamil said, “Well, dear Dotensk, it appears that Allah may be smiling upon us. The two HIND helicopters you saw are still there. I am supposed to use them to provide flank security for the armored column as it moves north into the area where the American-sponsored puppet army is holed up. I will dispatch them to this location to see if they can find your American who knows too much.”
“The sooner the better, because the Americans know where he is and plan to rescue him tonight. And please, Hussein, keep your phone on. If there are any changes, I shall call you at once. And… please forgive me for my intemperate words earlier. You are no fool. But you are my friend.”
“Of course.” The line went dead.
1400 meters N of Lake Tharthar
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Western Iraq
Tuesday, 7 March 1995
0900 Hours, Local
“Picnic Six, this is Fox Fire Three Dash One, over.” The call awakened Newman from a sound sleep. Though he had promised himself he would stay awake, the heat and fatigue had won again and he had dozed off, sitting upright, with the small radio on his lap. He grabbed the radio.
“Fox Fire, Picnic Six, go ahead.”
“Picnic Six, we've been advised that the bus won't be coming to your stop until after dark tonight—unless you have any unwanted company, over.”
“Roger, Fox Fire. No sign of any unexpected guests yet, over.”
“Well, don't take it personally, but they may have bigger fish to fry. Our Navy friends with the rabbit ears say they're picking up all kinds of traffic on the Baghdad-Mosul highway—all of it headed north. For whatever reason, we've been instructed to let it go. Meanwhile, we've got to run up to the north to pay a quick visit to a gas station. Think you'll be all right without us for a while? Over.”
“Roger that. I promise to be a good boy and stay right where I am until you get back.”
Newman understood the jargon. The “rabbit ears” were the sensors aboard a Navy EA-6 flying somewhere over Iraq and listening to radio “traffic.” The “gas station” was undoubtedly a KC-10 or some other airborne tanker, flying somewhere over Turkey. The F-16s would fly up behind it, hook up to the fuel drogues, fill their tanks, and then return. Meanwhile he'd sit tight.
What neither Newman nor the aviators above him understood was that the heavy radio communications being picked up by the EA-6 were emanating from the Republican Guards, armored and mechanized units headed north to crush the Iraqi National Congress resistance forces north of Mosul—the very attack that the Iraqi ambassador to the UN had told Simon Harrod about the day before. Just sixty kilometers west of where Newman lay hiding, the best units in the Iraqi military were jammed bumper to bumper on a single highway, headed north. Had Newman known that his failed mission was the cause for Saddam's decision to crush the resistance, he would have been sick. And he would have been further despondent to know that the Iraqi attack was being permitted to take place unhindered by U.S. airpower because of fears in Washington that Iraq would expose the mission's failure. But then, he also didn't know that his own life was in jeopardy of forfeit as well.
Because he had no knowledge of these things, Newman wasn't worried. Dusk—and rescue—were only nine hours away, and the F-16s would be back in thirty or forty minutes with full fuel tanks.
Underground Pipeline Road
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Lake Tharthar, Iraq
Tuesday, 7 March 1995
0941 Hours, Local
Eli Yusef Habib was getting ready to go. He had slept overnight in his truck and took his time cooking an egg for breakfast and heating his tea over a small primus stove, one of the consumer products in highest demand along his “sales route.”
He wondered why he was here. Could he have misunderstood his leading?
Habib was beginning to think it was dangerous here. A half hour earlier he had seen and heard two military jet planes swoop low out of the sky and fly over him, then they left the area.
Now he heard another noise and looked to the sky. As he watched from his position three kilometers north of Lake Tharthar, two helicopters roared toward him from the east. He reached into his truck and grabbed his Zeiss 10x56 binoculars. The aircraft were huge, bristling with guns and rocket pods. He recognized them as Russian-built HIND attack helicopters. The Kurds along his sales route called them “flying tanks.” Even at this distance they looked fearsome as they skimmed along, just one hundred feet or so above the ground.
Suddenly, the lead helicopter unleashed a volley of rockets at a small, rocky outcropping about a mile or two away. The first helicopter swooped up to avoid the blasts and the second helicopter, slightly behind the first, repeated the attack, its warheads exploding at exactly the same point, just as the concussions from the first volley reached the old man. As Habib watched, the first helicopter came back around and though the sound had not yet reached him, he could see puffs of smoke from the gun pods and tracer rounds impacting where the rockets had landed.
Both helicopters went into a low hover, firing their guns at the same target, just a few hundred meters in front of them. The downwash from the rotor blades kicked up an enormous dust cloud and, where the rockets and 12.7mm exploding machine gun rounds were impacting, there was more dust and smoke. And now, Habib could hear what sounded to him like two chain saws running at very high rpm—the noise of the HINDs' revolving machine guns sending thousands of rounds a minute into whatever they were aiming at.
Suddenly, two jets roared over the old man from behind. They were the same planes he had seen earlier, but now were so low and so loud that Habib instinctively cringed, expecting an explosion. Instead, the two aircraft each fired two missiles apiece, almost simultaneously, at the two helicopters. He put the binoculars up to his eyes just in time to see both of the HINDs explode in mid-air. The roto
r of one spun off at a high, crazy angle and they crashed to earth in a fiery tangle.
Habib was almost breathless at the spectacle being played out before him. He had seen war as a young boy. And he had certainly seen it again during the Iran-Iraq war of the '80s and the Gulf War in the early '90s. He had visited the Kurdish villages in the mountains and the Shia towns near Basra that had been attacked by Saddam's mustard and nerve gases. But he had never seen air combat at such close range. He didn't know who or what the helicopters had been shooting at and didn't know whose planes had shot them down, but he had no doubt that people had died. He lowered his glasses and said a prayer. “Lord, to You I commend their spirits. In Your merciful hands I pray that those who just died knew Your Son, our Savior. Amen.”
As the old man prayed, high above him, Fox Fire Three Dash One and Fox Fire Three Dash Two were calling back to the tanker, asking for it to cross into Iraq and fuel them up so they could remain on station. They had been heading north to take on fuel when they had heard Newman's frantic radio call: “Fox Fire Three Dash One, Picnic Six, two HIND Delta's coming in low and fast from the east. I think they have me spot—”
That had been enough for both pilots to do a 180-degree turn and head back to where they had just left the Marine lieutenant colonel. The fighter jet pilots had no way of knowing that the HINDs had launched from Tikrit South while the USAF aircraft winged their way north to link up with the tanker.
Now both USAF aircraft were running dangerously low on fuel.
The two jets each made separate passes over the burning wreckage of the HINDs and fired on it with their guns, but it was clear to Habib there could have been no survivors in the helicopters.
From beside his truck, Habib watched the two aircraft make a few more runs over the wreckage of the burning helicopters and then turn and head north, once again passing almost directly over where he stood. As they passed by, he could see clearly, beneath the gray camouflage paint, the USAF markings on their sides. And then they were gone over the horizon behind him.
Who or what were the helicopters attacking? Did it have something to do with the parachutes he had seen yesterday? He concluded it did—and further, because the helicopters had been shot down by American jets—that the helicopters must have been shooting at any American survivors from the events of the day before. He chastised himself for not investigating last night. Some poor souls must have spent a terrible night alone in the desert. And because I did not go to help them then, they may now be dead. Once again he said a silent prayer as he threw his belongings into the truck and started down the dirt track toward the smoking wreckage.
It took him about five minutes to get near the place. The fire was parallel to the highway, but nearly a kilometer away—and still he could feel its heat. Habib stopped his truck and gazed at the destruction.
He was shaking. It had just occurred to him how vulnerable he would have been had the helicopters seen him, or if the American jets had mistaken him for an enemy. Habib uttered a silent prayer of thanksgiving to his merciful God and decided that he'd make a quick search for whatever the helicopters had been shooting at. If he found nothing, he would get away from this area before more helicopters or soldiers came.
And then it occurred to him that more American planes could come at any moment and mistake him for an Iraqi soldier. Looking back to the north, he didn't see the planes coming back, nor did he see Army trucks coming from the east. But it was certainly time for him to keep moving.
Habib drove as close as he could to the small outcropping where the helicopters' rockets and machine guns had hit. There was the strong scent of ammonia from all the explosions. Dust and smoke still hung thick. As he got out of the cab, he spotted what at first seemed to be a smoking bundle of rags. He looked again. Was it a person? Yes… it was a man! He was on fire—or at least his clothes were. The old man grabbed a five-gallon water jug out of the bed of his truck and scrambled up the slight incline.
With the burned and blasted man now regaining consciousness, Habib began to examine his wounds. His right side was a mass of blood; the old man guessed he was wounded by fragments thrown by the rockets and stones chewed up from the machine gun fire. The old man firmly but gently examined the burns on the victim's neck, right arm, and leg. He scrambled down from the rock, ran back to his truck to find his first aid kit, and then climbed back up the little hill. When he got there, the man was trying to remove what was left of his smoldering flight suit. Habib saw the charred U.S. insignia. So—this man is an American. Habib spread the ointment from his first-aid kit liberally on the ugly burns and bandaged the worst of the many puncture wounds on the man's torso, arms, and legs. As he helped bandage up the holes in his body, he removed and set aside a money belt strapped around the victim's waist.
Newman watched the old Arab as he applied the salve. His first thought as he had regained consciousness was that he was drowning. Water was pouring over him, and then he felt strong hands gripping his flight suit and trying to hold him upright. He had looked up through seared eyelids and could barely make out the silhouette of a bearded man wearing Arab garb. The man's lips were moving, but Newman couldn't hear a thing. He remembered that he had been on the little survival radio, calling the F-16s to turn back because two HIND helicopters had been approaching, and then there were explosions. He could remember nothing else. He assumed his eardrums had ruptured from the concussions.
The old man's hands were gentle and expert. “Thank God that you came by when you did,” Newman said.
“Ah… you are a Christian,” the Arab said with a broad smile as he worked away at Newman's wounds. “I am also a believer. I am glad to meet a Christian brother from America. But I must get you away from here. The army may return, if not with planes, at least with trucks and soldiers to find you. Come, climb into the truck with me. I will drive you somewhere where you can be sheltered and recover from your wounds. Yes… thank God.”
Though Newman's hearing was still terribly impaired, he could catch parts of what the man was saying—and it was in English. The old man shouted, “You cannot walk. Put your left arm around my neck and I will carry you to my truck. We must get away from here.”
Newman did as he was told, and to his amazement, the old man picked him up and lifted him in a fireman's carry. He took Newman down the hill to the truck and helped him climb in on the passenger side. Then, the old man ran back up the hill and picked up the burned remnants of Newman's flight suit, the charred pack he had made from his parachute, the money belt, and the shattered pieces of the survival radio the Marine had been using when the helicopters unleashed their deadly fire. Returning to the truck, the Arab threw all of Newman's possessions in the bed of the truck, jumped in, and slammed the door.
“We must go now.” He put the truck in gear and drove back toward the highway.
Until they reached the road, the bouncing and jostling of the truck was extremely painful, but once they reached the underground pipeline road, the pain eased. The old man noticed as he drove that the American was dozing off to sleep. “Lord, let him sleep and kindly take away his pain,” he prayed aloud. Newman appreciated the sincerity of the man's concern. He closed his eyes.
Newman was awakened three hours later when the truck came to a halt. They had traveled a little less than seventy-five kilometers.
Directly in front of the truck there was a sign in English and Arabic: “Pumping Station 3.” In front of them was a long line of cars and trucks. And up ahead, Newman could see a wrecked bridge and another sign, “Euphrates Ferry—50 Dinars.”
The old man turned right, off the main road onto a side street, stopped beneath a tree to shade the truck from the midday sun, and jumped out to rummage through some of the boxes he had in the bed of the truck. He fished out a white linen garment that looked like a woman's cool summer dress and handed it in to Newman. He then fished around in another carton and brought back a white skull cap, not unlike a yarmulke, and a large square red-and-white-checked cloth
with a black cord.
He climbed back into the cab and leaned over near Newman's ear. “I know that this will be painful, but you must put these on. I will help you.”
Newman nodded that he understood, and the old man explained that the long white garment was called a thobe, that the skull cap was called a tagia to hold in place the red and white gutra which in turn was held in place by the black cord, called an igal. All of this, the old man explained, was intended for a customer that he would see on some future trip.
With his passenger suitably attired, the old Arab turned the truck around, went back to the main highway, and took a place in the line of cars and trucks waiting for the four-vehicle ferry to take them across the Euphrates. Sitting in the seat beside the old man in the heat, as the truck inched forward in line, Newman dozed off again. He barely awoke a while later as the truck bounced off the ferry on the southeastern side of the river.
Because he had been asleep, he had missed the transaction when Habib had handed the Iraqi soldier collecting tolls and checking identity papers and travel documents, ten 50 dinar notes.
As they pulled off the ferry, the sun was much lower in their faces and Newman noticed that they once again had left the main road and turned right, onto what was barely more than a well-traveled dirt path. A handwritten sign announced, “Al Fuhaymi—30 km.” He looked at his wrist compass and then his watch. Both were smashed, but from the sun's angle Newman could tell they were moving to the northwest, parallel to the river on their right.
Fifteen minutes later the old man again stopped the truck alongside a building with a weathered hand-painted sign in Arabic. Several other pickups and cars were pulled up alongside and in front of the single-story structure. The old man motioned for Newman to wait where he was and went in through the front door. When he returned, he had a pan of warm water and some more ointment.
Once he had cleaned and treated Newman's burns, and put clean bandages on both of his hands, his head, and his back, the Arab returned to the establishment and this time emerged with a bowl of steaming soup and several loaves of flat bread. Newman finished the soup and took some aspirin, helping them down with pieces of the flat bread.
